9 New Tools That Will Change the Future of War

These weapons, drones, and battlefield devices—some recently deployed, others in early R&D—will help the Pentagon fight more effectively with fewer troops.

SAIC

By
Joe Pappalardo

The landscape of war is always changing, but now more rapidly than ever. These weapons, drones, and battlefield devices—some recently deployed, others in early R&D—will help the Pentagon fight more effectively with fewer troops.

1Railgun

Martin Laksman

The concept has been around for nearly a century: use electromagnetism instead of explosive charges to fire artillery rounds. The U.S. Navy has been working on just such a weapon since 2005—a railgun prototype that's compact enough for a ship. Designed to support Marines during land strikes and harass enemy vessels from afar, the prototype harnesses a 32-megajoule jolt of electricity to launch a 23-pound shell that can destroy targets up to 110 miles away with kinetic energy alone. (One megajoule is the energy equivalent of a 1-ton vehicle moving at 100 mph.) Here's how the railgun works: High-voltage capacitor banks are connected to two copper rails—one positively charged (1) and the other negatively charged (2). To fire the weapon, a current pulses down the positively charged rail, across a conductive armature (3) that cradles a shell (4), and up the negatively charged rail. The completed circuit generates powerful electromagnetic fields that propel the armature and shell along the rails at tremendous velocity. At the end of the rails, the shell detaches (5) from the armature and speeds to its target at more than 5600 mph. The launch sequence takes 10 milliseconds. The Navy plans to start shipboard tests in 2016.

2Smart-Scope Rifle

Ian Allen

A Texas company called TrackingPoint has developed a laser-guided, semiautomatic rifle with a networked tracking scope that measures distance, humidity, and 16 other ballistic variables. The payoff is high first-shot precision on targets up to 750 yards away. Shown here on the AR 762, the scope also streams live video from its Heads Up Display to smartphones and tablets. Other fighters could use the video to acquire targets; commanders could use it to assess battlefields in real time. The Army began testing a military version of the rifle in May.

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3Minesweeping Drone

Bluefin Robotics

The autonomous Knifefish uses side-scan sonar to detect floating or buried mines. A lithium-ion battery powers the 19-foot-long craft on preprogrammed missions that can last up to 16 hours. Deployment is scheduled for 2017.

4Unmanned Sub Hunter

SAIC

Radar, lidar, and other sensors enable SAIC's Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel to avoid ships while tracking quiet diesel–electric subs on 80-day missions that can span 3800 miles. Prototypes are expected to hit the water in mid-2015.

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5Enhanced Combat Helmet

Kevlar and Twaron combat helmets, which are made of ballistic fibers, can withstand a direct hit from a 9-mm pistol round or even some bomb fragments. The Enhanced Combat Helmet, which the Army and Marine Corps began issuing late last year, is the first helmet capable of stopping a rifle round. It is made of ultrahigh-molecular-weight polyethylene, a type of thermoplastic, and weighs about 3 pounds, the same as the other helmets.

6Wearable Batteries

RDECOM PAO

Gadgets can give U.S. troops an edge, but the penalty is the weight of all those batteries. Arotech developed the Soldier Wearable Integrated Power Equipment System to eliminate the need to bring along extra power packs. The system uses high-capacity zinc–air and lithium-ion batteries to continuously charge a soldier's two-way radio, GPS unit, and other devices. Worn in a tactical vest, the thin, flexible power source extends missions and reduces battery weight by 30 percent.

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7Night-Vision Contact Lenses

University of Michigan

Engineers at the University of Michigan built the first room-temperature light detector with broadband sensitivity, from ultraviolet wavelengths through visible light to infrared. The photo sensor, which is made of two layers of transparent graphene, each a single atom thick, could eventually be integrated with circuitry into contact lenses. The wearable tech could eventually provide troops with thermal vision, a type of night vision for detecting heat signatures from vehicles, weapons, and troops.

8Chemical Weapon Antidote

The University of North Carolina (UNC)

Chemical weapons remain a silent, deadly scourge. During an attack, when every second counts, troops could slap on this patch, which delivers an antidote via hundreds of microneedles.

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9Tendon-Assisted Rigid Exoskeleton

The Department of Veterans Affairs has reported a tenfold increase in musculoskeletal injuries from 2003 to 2009, not surprising given that troops in Iraq and Afghanistan carry packs that weigh 60 to 100 pounds. In response, cadets at West Point invented the Tendon-assisted Rigid Exoskeleton (T-REX), a 3D-printed brace made of high-grade plastic and worn over combat boots. The latest prototype strings 100 ultrafine Flexinol wires between the heel and the ankle of the brace; the wires flex in response to electrical signals, contracting like a second set of muscles to boost leg strength. A pair of braces, which are powered by radio batteries the troops already carry in their packs, weighs just 1.5 pounds.